


Rain

by aetos



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:22:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28948125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aetos/pseuds/aetos
Summary: You look at Hytham through Eivor’s eyes, willing her not to look away.Eivor and Hytham get caught in the rain. Basim observes.
Relationships: Eivor/Basim Ibn Ishaq, Eivor/Hytham, Hytham/Basim Ibn Ishaq
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87





	Rain

**Author's Note:**

> MAJOR SPOILERS for AC Valhalla ending.

_You love the rain. Even more, you love the feeling of the rain on Eivor’s skin. Every sensation she feels is fascinating to you—the soft pressure of each raindrop, the cool water running in little streams down her face, even the chill of the breeze that raises bumps on her arms. It's captivating._

_Through Eivor’s eyes, you’ve seen the winter turn to spring. You’ve felt the open ocean’s breeze on her face. You’ve fallen with her on her knees in despair, and then risen up in her resolve. You see through her eyes, but you do not speak with her mouth. When she moves, you move with her. When she sleeps, you dream of two selves—of life as a man, and of life as a god._

_But here, inside the Animus, you are human. You almost forget the reason you're here—revenge lessens its hold on your mind as you find yourself absorbed in the life of another. You are free._

  
  


The rain was falling warm and heavy, and Eivor was laughing.

“Are you so shocked that I can handle a bow?” Hytham said, the offense in his voice entirely feigned.

“You, the man who spends his life indoors hunched over a map?” Eivor almost had to raise her voice over the sound of the rain on the newly-green forest, the mud squelching under her boots as she walked next to him. “Oh, never.”

“And I assume you also think the blade on my arm is just for decoration.”

“As is the sword at your hip.” Truly, Eivor was impressed with the way Hytham shot a rabbit, before even she saw it. She was surprised when he had shown her a faint path through the long grass and told her that a boar had traveled east there, and then tracked it for half a mile to the river. It seemed that each day she spent with him, she discovered something new about him. “Hytham, when did you learn to hunt?”

Hytham thought for half a moment. “Another life ago,” he said, a bit of jest still in his voice.

They walked the rest of the way back to the settlement in amicable silence, but for the rain falling around them.

At last, they found themselves on the porch of Hytham’s bureau. Eivor laughed as Hytham shook his limbs, spraying water from the wet cloth of his tunic. “You look like a wet dog,” she chuckled. She wiped some of the rain from her brow, and wrung out her hair.

“And you like a… a herring,” he said.

Eivor was glad to see Hytham in such good spirits. It had been weeks since she delivered him the news of his mentor’s death, and yet the grief still lingered on Hytham’s face. But here he was, exchanging barbs with her, a playful smile on his lips.

The rain was falling even harder now, hammering on the roof of the bureau, weaving tiny rivers through the mud. Hytham leaned his elbows against the porch railing and gazed out into the storm. He smiled still, but the look in his eyes was faraway, wistful.

“Basim loved the rain,” Hytham said, his voice quieter now. “He loved watching the storms come. Once, on our travels, we became caught in a storm, heavier even than this one. I remember how I could hardly see him through the rain, though we stood closer than you and I at this moment.”

The image of a man hanging lifeless from the metal branches of Yggdrasil flashed before her eyes like an afterimage. Eivor blinked, pushed it away.

“We were so far from any city. But we found a cave to spend the night in, out of the storm. He stayed up very late that night, just… just looking at the rain.”

As Hytham spoke, Eivor found her eyes drawn to him. To his cheeks, covered in a short, dark fuzz. To the longing smile on his lips as he spoke of his mentor. To the way he moved his hands so as to illustrate his speech. To the way he seemed to lean closer toward Eivor with every word.

She briefly recalled Basim’s manner of speaking, his dark, sweet voice and the gleam in his eye. Hytham’s voice was softer than Basim’s, and not as deep, but Eivor found herself becoming lost in his words. In his eyes, large and keen and expressive, and blue.

“If I did not know you better, Eivor, I would say you were staring at me,” said Hytham, his smile once again playful.

Eivor had hardly noticed the story had ended and that silence had fallen once again between them. “Me, staring?” She mustered all the fake indignation she could, her hands on her hips. “Bold words for hungry eyes.”

Hytham stood up straight, blushing deeply. He briefly glanced around as if he hadn’t just had his gaze fixed on her.

“Come, Hytham, you’ll catch a chill out here.” Eivor smirked and gestured at the door with an exaggerated wave of the hand. “Surely somewhere inside might be a bit drier.”

  
  


_You’re looking at a side of Hytham you rarely saw until you stepped into the Animus. It’s the witty, playful side, something you know he kept under restraint when he was around you. Hytham was always so serious with you, as if always vying for your approval. But you like this side of Hytham. Eivor likes it too._

_In fact, Eivor likes it a lot. Since her return from Norway, she’s spent much of her time with Hytham, perhaps more than she’s spent with anyone else, seeking him out when her demons—your demons—haunt her. The two of them share a grief that keeps them from sleep, but that brings them together. They speak of you often._

_She_ thinks _of you often. On those sleepless nights, she watches the moment you betrayed her, over and over again in her mind, as if studying it. Each morning when she leaves the longhouse, she glances around into the shadows, half-expecting your presence there. She pictures your smile, hears your laugh in her head, dwells on each time you touched her._

_And from the look on Hytham’s face when she’d speak of you, you know he thinks about you just as much._

  
  
  


The bureau was dim, the light through the windows weakened by the overcast sky, but inside it was warm. Hytham darted between shelves and tables, shuffling scrolls and parchment around as if to tidy up.

“Please forgive the mess,” he said, standing on his toes to place a scroll on a high shelf. “I did not anticipate entertaining guests today.”

“Entertaining?” said Eivor. “Guests? Show me these guests and I can provide all the entertainment they need.” Eivor moved across the bureau in a few long strides and put a hand on Hytham’s damp shoulder. “Hytham. You’re soaking wet. You can impress me later.”

Hytham put another scroll away.

Eivor looked around the bureau, taking in her surroundings. The packed-earth floor was covered by rugs that bore exotic designs, but yet were worn thin in places. Maps—of England, of Norway, of unfamiliar locations—adorned the walls. Nearly every surface was piled with scrolls and sheets of parchment, many of them bearing the graceful, curling runes of the language Hytham had shared with Basim.

She leaned against a table with one hip and removed her boots, and then her socks. The colorful rugs were soft under her bare feet. As she fiddled with the brooch on her cloak, she noticed Hytham’s eyes on her again. He had turned back toward her, his hands on his hips.

“So we are taking our clothes off now.”

“We _could_ remain soggy,” Eivor said, shrugging off her cloak. “But we’d wrinkle like the skins of apples in the sun.”

Hytham huffed softly. “As you wish,” he said at last, after a pause. He began with boots, and then his hood, and as he pulled it over his head it ruffled his wet hair, causing it to stand in messy spikes above his forehead. He quickly smoothed his hair down, as if anticipating Eivor’s comment on the matter.

“See? Better already.” Eivor sat down on a bench, undid the buckles on her leather armor, took it off, and stacked the pieces on top of her cloak. Now she was down to just her tunic and trousers, each garment only slightly damp.

She watched Hytham, curious. He was still unbuckling the various belts and fasteners over his tunic. Eivor had never seen what he looked like under the armor that he seemed to wear everywhere he went, even while poring over scrolls and maps in his bureau all day.

“Are you impressed yet?” Hytham said, as if sensing Eivor’s eyes on him.

At last, Hytham had managed to undo his armor, and stood there in his long, pale tunic and the rust-colored sash he wore around his waist. He was smaller than he had seemed with even the thin padding of leather and metal on his shoulders. His frame was slight, but muscular—despite his size, he carried a slightly formidable air about him, made realer by the blade he still wore strapped to his left arm.

“I am.” Eivor crossed her legs at the ankle and leaned back with her elbows on the table behind her.

That blade…. Only three people in Eivor’s world had possession of one of those miraculous weapons. One of them was herself. One stood in front of her now. The last one’s body lay in a great stone temple across the sea. Basim had borne the blade to the grave with him.

Again, she found herself thinking of Basim, imagining him standing where Hytham was right now, him stripping off his wet clothes. A shiver ran down her spine.

“Now whose eyes are hungry, Eivor Wolf-Kissed?” Hytham said, teasingly drawing out the epithet.

“I never took you for the type to flirt so openly, Hytham.” Eivor’s eyes refocused on the man in front of her. “But please continue doing so,” she said.

Hytham sat down on the bench next to Eivor, close enough that she could feel the warmth from his body. He looked at her. “Would you like me to be even more… direct?”

Eivor sat up. “Is this going where I think it’s going, Hytham?”

“It could be, if you wish it.”

Before she could retort, Hytham’s lips were on her own.

It was a gentle kiss, almost hesitant. When it was over, Hytham looked at Eivor as if searching for her approval.

Eivor was stunned. Despite Hytham’s flirting, despite his growing closeness to her, this was not something she expected from him. The Hytham she thought she knew always held back. But she liked this Hytham.

She pulled him close to her, and kissed him back.

  
  


_You’re not surprised it came to this. What catches you off guard is how._

_You, like Eivor, have never known Hytham to be this forward. But the moment of confusion doesn’t last long, as you have other sensations to distract you—Hytham’s soft lips against Eivor’s, his hand on the wolf-kissed skin of her neck, the feel of his heart beating fast like the wings of a small bird. The sound of the rain outside. A deep longing fills your entire being. For what, you’re not certain._

_Through Eivor you’ve tasted hundreds of emotions—fleeting ones and all-consuming ones, emotions that simmer and emotions that boil and froth—but this is something different. It’s curiosity and fondness and desire, and more, all rolled into one. You try to remember the last time_ you _felt like this. The memory is faint, distant. It was more than a lifetime ago. And when were you last touched like this?_

_Hytham’s hands are tender, but almost tentative—he seems to lead each caress with a lighter touch, as if asking to proceed. It’s sweet, charming even. The scruff of his short beard scrapes against Eivor’s face with each kiss, a slight roughness that’s unfamiliar, but not unpleasant, to you. And then there’s something new to Eivor, new to you. The momentary sensation of hard metal on skin—the hidden blade still strapped to Hytham’s arm._

  
  


Eivor was intoxicated. Hytham’s kisses were growing more urgent, more intense. But never rough. His hands had begun to wander over Eivor’s tunic—to her back, her waist, her hip, her thigh, and back up to cup her face. As his left wrist passed over her neck, Eivor felt the touch of metal against her skin.

She pulled away from Hytham, almost breathless, and a low whine escaped from his lips.

“Is there something wrong?” Hytham’s face bore an expression of intense concern.

“You speak as if I am so fragile, Hytham. Are we two not warriors?” Eivor reached for Hytham’s left hand. She briefly laced her fingers together with his—she noticed the gap where his fourth finger should have been—and then turned his arm over, exposing the blade there. “Always so prepared. Are we to expect the Order barging in on us this afternoon?” Eivor let go. “Going without my weapons always leaves me nervous, as if I am naked,” she said, beginning to undo the straps that held her own blade to her arm. “But being naked with you is a chance I am willing to take.” Eivor smiled.

Hytham blushed deeply. He unfastened his blade and slipped it off his arm. “You disarm me with your words.”

Eivor kissed him again, lightly scraping her teeth against his bottom lip before rising to her feet. She pulled Hytham up with her. “This bench was not built for comfort. Shall we find somewhere better-suited?”

Hytham obliged, guiding Eivor to the small bed in the corner, kissing her the whole time. By the time they made it to the bed, Eivor had untangled Hytham’s sash from his waist, and was working on removing his tunic.

Hytham sat first. “Is this acceptable to you? I am quite sure it is not as comfortable as the bed of a _jarlskona_ , nor as spacious.” Through the playful sarcasm, there was a note of self-consciousness to Hytham’s voice, and Eivor briefly wondered where that came from.

“You are always welcome in the bed of this particular _jarlskona,_ ” Eivor said, following Hytham’s lead. “Though I suppose this will do for now.”

“I am honored,” said Hytham, almost a purr this time. His breath was on Eivor’s ear, and his lips followed. He kissed down her neck to her collarbone, and Eivor couldn’t help but let out a pleased hum.

When Hytham grasped Eivor’s collar to pull her closer, she gently pushed him down onto the bed. Eivor moved to straddle his hips, sitting up on her haunches to slip off her tunic. Now down to her trousers and the wrap around her chest, she felt a slight chill on her skin, in sharp contrast to the unbearable warmth beginning to pool in her belly. Hytham looked up at her and breathlessly whispered something in a language Eivor didn’t understand. And then his hands were on her bare skin, exploring each curve and angle of her body. His fingers were delicate, almost, but deft, and they drew out elegant patterns on Eivor’s lower back.

“You appear to be dressed a bit formally for this occasion,” Eivor teased, playing with the hem of Hytham’s tunic. Hytham sat up and pulled the pale garment over his head, and then did the same with the layer under it.

“Is this better, my _jarlskona_?” he asked, a lopsided grin on his face.

“Very good, Hytham,” said Eivor, matching his smile with her own. She could feel the shiver run through his body at her words.

  
  


_You look at Hytham through Eivor’s eyes, willing her not to look away. You’ve seen his body before—you had bathed together, tended his wounds—but never from this perspective._

_Hytham is smaller in stature than Eivor, much as he had been smaller than you, with a lithe, compact body. His complexion had matched yours in tone, but as Eivor runs her hands over his chest, you observe the contrast between the two—her pale hands make Hytham’s skin appear darker than you remember. The hair on his chest is black and curly but sparse. On Hytham’s left flank, right below the ribs, sits a long, ragged scar—a token of his devotion to you, once._

_You imagine touching him like Eivor is now—not with Eivor’s hands, but with your own. What would it be like to hold Hytham tight against_ you _, the lithe body warm with desire, to trace his scars, to stir his lust and cause his breath to hitch as you touch just_ there _?_

_Would he have melted under your hands the way he does under Eivor’s? Would you have drawn the same sounds from him that Eivor does—the little gasps, the words he utters in your native tongue? Would he have been as eager to please you in these pursuits as he had been in everything else?_

_For now, you can do little but wonder._

  
  


In one graceful movement, Hytham rolled the two of them around so that he was atop Eivor, her on her back with their legs intertwined. It caught Eivor by surprise, and she found a short gasp escaping her lips. With most other men (and with many women), Eivor would have found this a position of utter vulnerability. But looking up at Hytham, she felt something different that she couldn’t describe.

He leaned down to kiss her again, and again, and Eivor pulled him toward her by the hips, seeking greater contact. As he arched into her, Eivor felt Hytham’s arousal, unmistakable against her thigh, and the quick stutter of his breath when she briefly ground her hips against his. She did it again, and from Hytham came a long exhalation, carrying with it a whispered string of syllables she felt in her soul.

Hytham’s hand was wandering again, making its way up and down Eivor’s torso, from the sharp corner of her hipbone to her ribs, and then over her chest. He gently, inquisitively cupped her breast through the fabric.

“It seems that we are overdressed again,” Eivor said with a sigh. She disentangled herself from Hytham, sitting up to remove the wrap that covered her breasts.

The bed was small enough that Hytham needed to shimmy towards the wall to make room for both of them side by side.

Eivor paused, her breasts now exposed. “Gods, Hytham,” she said. “This bed is fit only for dwarves. Did you share this with Basim?”

“I—we—” Hytham sat up, his eyes wide and cheeks red. “Yes, but never like this! And he was often away, so—”

Laughing gently, Eivor leaned towards Hytham, placing another kiss on his lips, and then one on his neck, and then his chest, and, then pushing him down to lie on the bed, one on his stomach. She unfastened his trousers and pulled them down over his hips.

Hytham gasped, whatever he had been about to say unimportant.

Hytham lay exposed before her, his cock hard, his chest flushed. Gods, he was beautiful. When Eivor gave his cock a single, gentle stroke, his hips hitched upward and a sublime noise escaped his throat. The second and third strokes played out much the same. When her lips touched his cock, he breathed her name—barely audible at first, but as Eivor continued, his voice grew in volume and urgency.

“Eivor, Eivor, please,” he said.

She looked up at him between kisses to his cock. “Please _what_ , Hytham?”

“Please—Eivor, I—this is too much.”

Eivor halted, sat up.

He fumbled for her hand, and when he found it, he brought it to his lips. “It has been some time now since—” he began. “It has been years. I want to see your eyes when—”

Eivor didn’t expect Hytham to be the type to be so bashful when it came to sex. But she found it immediately endearing. She smiled at him, kissed him once on the lips. “I see,” she said. She kneeled to remove her trousers, and then laid back down beside him, rolling Hytham toward her to lie flush against her body.

He was kissing her again, his nimble fingers working down her back, and then between her thighs, and then— _oh._

  
  


_When Hytham’s fingers make contact with Eivor’s clit, you wish with every fiber of your being you could grab him by the hair and kiss him back, could grind your cock into his hand. You wish you could say his name._

_“Gods, Hytham,” Eivor says, her hips bucking forward as she guides him gently towards the right spot._

_When he enters her with one finger, then two, it is as if lightning has struck. It’s a feeling that’s familiar, but alien all the same. She moves to find a better angle and then you are reeling, out of balance, out of focus, when he touches something in her, first soft and inquisitive and then confident, ardent. Eivor rides his fingers, just like that, and he’s drawing sensations out of you that you could never have imagined. She looks into his eyes._

_She comes, and your world goes white. You say—she says—his name again._

_Hytham is smiling below her, and then he is kissing her. He rolls her over on her back, parting her thighs. His cock rubs at her clit. And then he is inside of her, and all you—she—can think is_ Hytham, Hytham, Hytham.

_He is gentle—almost too gentle. And he is maddeningly slow, each thrust of his hips drawn out until Eivor keens softly, almost begging. You’re not accustomed to receiving, to being penetrated like this. In Eivor’s place, you would be inside him. But each time Hytham pushes into her, you crave more. And yet at the same time you picture yourself, your body, in place of him, fucking Eivor, making her grasp at the furs and say_ your _name—what your name had been. You want to take control. You want to grab her hips and drive your cock into her, leave your mark on her skin. You want to claim her._

_Without losing contact, Eivor flips the two of them over. Now she is on top of Hytham, grinding a more frantic rhythm on his cock. You love this view of him. And then Eivor is coming again, and after another moment you feel Hytham jerk under her, and then go still._

_Eivor presses her forehead to his and kisses him gently. He smiles up at her and kisses her back._

  
  


The rain was still falling outside. Eivor lay in Hytham’s bed, draped in his furs, her arm loosely around his waist. Something in her was deeply sated, but she couldn’t put a finger on it.

“You are strangely quiet,” said Hytham. “Deep in thought?”

“Only about how small this bed is.” She spoke only to fill the silence. In truth, she was content with silence, but if Hytham were speaking, he must have had something on his mind.

Hytham sighed. “It has been a long time since this bed has been so full. I missed this—being close to someone.” Eivor detected a note of longing in his voice.

“You and Basim were close, no doubt.”

“I—I suppose we were.” Hytham laughed softly, but there was a tinge of sadness to it. After a long pause, he turned over onto his back and looked at Eivor. “Among the Hidden Ones, it is not uncommon for a Master to… share a bed… with his apprentice. An Acolyte might train under a Master for years. Years of nights alone, under the stars. One comes to know his Master very well.” Hytham’s voice was matter-of-fact, as if he was explaining an obscure piece of history. “Basim and I—no, we were never as close as that.”

“But you wished for intimacy,” Eivor said. “Longing cuts deeper than a knife, sometimes. I’m sorry, Hytham.” She thought of Basim back in Norway, the look of mania in his eyes as he held his blade to her throat. Could that man ever have loved Hytham the way Hytham loved him?

“I wish I had known him. I suppose I wished to… _know_ him, too,” Hytham said, smiling at his own innuendo.

Eivor kissed his cheek. “It was nice getting to _know_ you today.”

“And I would like to get to know you even better.” There was still sadness in Hytham’s voice, on his face, but it melted away when Eivor kissed him again. And again.

“We’ve got all afternoon.”

  
  


_You open the lid of the Animus. You are wide awake. The cabin is empty and dark, and a chill has seeped into the air._

_You walk outside and light a small fire in the firepit, and sit on the bench there, staring into the flames. The sensation of Hytham’s touch echoes through your nervous system._

_It starts to rain._

**Author's Note:**

> For the purposes of this fic, I'm assuming at least a little bit of Basim is "left" at the ending of the game. Also, AC's lore is incredibly confusing.


End file.
